Articles Tagged with samsung

Samsung’s lawyers want a copy of Apple’s patent licensing agreement with HTC, according to emails filed in federal court on Friday (highlighted below).

After a federal jury returned a $1.05 billion verdict for Apple in August — just one of the two companies’ hotly contested global patent disputes — U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh scheduled a December 6 hearing date on Apple’s request for an injunction prohibiting the sale of reportedly infringing Samsung products.

Samsung, however, is trying to lessen the severity of any injunctive relief sought by Apple, since the Cupertino company and competing mobile device marker HTC just settled their own patent litigation.

A snippy apology is apparently not what the judges involved in Apple’s U.K. patent litigation over Samsung tablets ordered, according to testy statements made at a U.K. Court of Appeal hearing today.

Judge Robin Jacob court told Apple and Samsung lawyers this morning that the iPad maker had 24 hours to revise its currently published statement about the verdict in favor of Samsung on Apple’s UK website, replace it with a new one apologizing for inaccuracies, put the link on its home page, and use at least an 11-point font.

The website notice that Apple published last Friday highlighted a lower court judge’s statement that the Samsung tablets involved in the lawsuit “are not as cool” as Apple’s iPad. Apple also piled on a host of earlier judicial platitudes emphasizing that the iPad has “extreme simplicity . . . is striking . . . . It is a cool design.”

The original July 18, 2012 order by Judge Colin Birss of the Patent Court, granted Samsung’s request to require Apple to publish a simple, one-paragraph statement on its website, and in a number of print publications:

“On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet computers, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple’s registered design 000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High Court is available via the following link [insert hyperlink].”

Judge Birss ordered Apple to publish the notice only in the U.K., denying Samsung’s request that Apple publish it on each of the company’s country-specific European websites. He also rejected Samsung’s request that the notice be on Apple’s UK website for a year, concluding that six months was more appropriate. The judge’s rationale was that “this a very fast moving industry and I bear in mind the risk of prejudice to Apple” of a more extended publication requirement.

Apple published a roundabout apology today (see below) after losing an appeal in the British courts over a lawsuit claiming that some Samsung tablets infringed the registered design of the Cupertino, California, company’s iPad.

The publication notice was made to comply with an earlier July 18, 2012, ruling by a lower court requiring Apple to publish, at its own expense, a link and explanation to the judgment rendered by HHJ Birss QC on July 9, 2012.

The apology listed below was issued after an iPad-toting British judge upheld a lower court finding that three different Samsung tablet computers “do not infringe Apple’s registered design No. 000181607-0001.”

The phrase ‘registered design’ refers to a legal status conferred by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office for “grant[ing] exclusive rights in the look and appearance of your product.”

Sir Robin Jacob, who wrote the judgment for the panel of three British Court of Appeal judges who heard and decided the case, candidly disclosed that he has an Apple iPad (“I own one”).

In a motion filed last Tuesday, Samsung’s lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh to set aside the jury’s $1.05 billion iPhone lawsuit verdict in favor of Apple. They alleged that jury foreman and retired computer engineer Velvin Hogan failed to disclose that his former Silicon Valley employer Seagate Technology Inc. sued him in 1993, despite being asked by the judge whether he had been involved in any lawsuits.

Yesterday, a Northern California jury announced their verdict in one of the most highly anticipated decisions of the high technology era: Samsung must pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages for patent infringement.

In that case, Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., both companies alleged numerous patent infringements by the other company. The jury’s verdict clearly indicates that it believed Samsung, not Apple, was the in the wrong here. So what happens next?

Illinois law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt and what it says about stare decisis, the notion that prior Court rulings are entitled to respect in the Court today.